Piano sounding-board.



J. WEISER.

PIANO SOUNDING BOARD.

.APPLICATION Hmm 00T. 25;, 1912.

1,090,261.I Patented Mar.17,1914.

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UNITED sTATEs PATENT oEEioE.

JOHN WEIsER, or cHcAGo, ILLrNoIs.

PIANO SOUNDING-BOARD.

To all 'whom t may concern Be it known that I, JOHN WErsEn, a citizen of the United States, residing at Chicago, in the county of Cook and StateV of Illinois, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Piano Sounding- Boards, of which the following is a specilication, reference being had therein to the accompanying drawing.

My invention relates to pianos and is especially intended to provide a system of auxiliary swinging or vibrating soundboards suppo-rted between the ribs on the rear of the usual regular sounding board to prolong or sustain the tone when the piano is played.

The invention. consists in the matters hereinafter disclosed and then set forth in the appended claims.

In the drawings illustrating a practical embodiment of my invention Figure l is a rear view in elevation of the back frame of an upright piano with its usual equipment and having auxiliary sound-boards in accordance with the principle of my invention, and Fig. 2 is a vertical sectional view of the same parts on the line 2 2 of Fig. 1 with the rib omitted.

In the drawing the reference letter A represents the usual back frame of an upright piano consisting of top and bottom pieces and the usual connecting uprights, the pin.- block a, and the acoustic rim a, to which the sounding board B is attached. The sounding board carries the bridge Z9, ribs L', and the metal plate b2, the vibrating strings b3 being connected at one end to the plate and extended over the bridge to the tuning pins b4 in the pin-block a. The parts so far recited are of the usual construction and organization now well understood in the art, and so do not require extended description.

In order to prolong or sustain the tone when the piano is played I provide a number of auxiliary sound-boards. This may be accomplished by arranging a plurality of vibrating sound-boards with their active portions approximately at the center of the usual sounding board of a grand or upright piano.

In the form shown to illustrate the present embodiment of the invention in an up right piano the rear face of the main sounding board is provided with a plurality of swinging or vibrating sound-boards C fastened so that they lie substantially in the Specification of Letters Patent.

Application filed October 24, 1912.

Patented Mar. 17, 1914. Serial No. 727,496.

center of the sounding board and between and in the plane of the ribs .5. In the form shown certain of the boards are fastened at approximately their central portions by screws c passing through the main sounding board and secured to the bridge, while.

others are carried on the frame with one end on the acoustic rim, all being spaced from their supporting members by suitable washers or spacing plates c to bring them into the plane of the adjacent ribs and so afford space between them and the sounding-board. These sound-boards are thin Hat strips; and those carried on the bridge extend like wings on either side thereof, while those carried at the acoustic rim project toward the center of the soundingboard, it being understood that in grand pianos the auxiliary sound-boards are similarly supported. When a note is struck the vibration of the string causes the soundingboard to vibrate, and the waves produced by this motion of the sounding-board in turn cause the auxiliary sound-boards to swing or vibrate to pro-long or sustain the note or tone.

In practice each auxiliary sound-board is caused to vibrate by the vibration of the main sounding-board, so that no auxiliary board is dependent for its action upon any particular string or set of strings.

In practice I have found that by the use of my invention an instrument of relatively small size, incapable in itself of producing a tone equal to that of a piano of ordinary or standard size, will give the same tone as such standard piano when equipped with my invention.

It is of course understood that the number of the auxiliary boards and their disposition upon the bridge or rim may be varied without departing from my invention; the present disclosure is a practical embodiment of my invention which may be exemplified in various forms and arrangements of parts.

I claim 1. A piano having a back frame provided with an acoustic rim, a sounding-board having rear ribs and a bridge and strings bearing o-n the bridge, and a plurality of auxiliary flat sound-boards some supported opposite the bridge and others at the rim and projecting between the ribs at a spaced distance from the sounding-board.

b2. A piano having a sounding board provided With ribs and a bridge andA strings bearing thereon, and a plurality of auxiliary Hat sound-boards supported at ltheir centers on the rear of the sounding-board in the line of the vbrid-ge and extending on both sides thereof between the ribs at a spaced distance from the sounding-board and all vibrated by each Vibration of the soundingboard.

3. A piano having a sounding-board provided with ribs and a bridge and strings bearing on the bridge, and a plurality of auxiliary flat sound-boards supported at the riin and projecting between the ribs toward the center of the sounding-board at a spaced distance from the sounding-board and vbratedr by the Vibration of the sounding-board.

In testimony whereof I affix my signature in presence of two Witnesses.

JOHN YVEISER. Witnesses:

FRANK J. l/Vnrsnn, J. MCROBERTS.

Copies of this patent may 'ne obtained for ive cents each, by addressing the Commissioner of Patents,

Washington, D. C. 

